I'm not a fan of Newsmax, but think this issue they are reporting on--and they are one of the few doing so--is of critical importance. As some may recall, two members of the New Black Panthers were arrested for voter intimidation at a polling place in Philly last election. AG Eric Holder elected to drop those charges, and has failed to respond to congressional inquiries asking why. My take is that the AG is seeking to underwrite the type of thugocarcy we saw represented by the SEIU at a recent St Louis town hall meeting. I sure wish to be wrong.

As the old Irish toast goes, may your sins be judged by the Senate ethics committee. Actually that's not an Irish toast but it must be the fervent hope of every politician who received a "Friend of Angelo" loan from former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo. Late last week the six Senators on the ethics panel dismissed complaints against Senators Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd with a mere admonishment about the appearance of impropriety.

The three Republican and three Democratic Senators say they conducted an exhaustive probe and inspected 18,000 pages of documents. They say they found "no substantial credible evidence as required by Committee rules" that the Senators received mortgage rates or services that weren't commonly available to the public, and thus did not violate the Senate gift ban.

We'll have to take their word that the evidence wasn't "substantial," because they didn't release those documents, nor did they encourage Mr. Dodd to release any of his records. Readers will recall that in February Mr. Dodd staged a peek-a-boo release with selected reporters but did not allow anyone to have copies of the documents. If the evidence was so clear-cut, why the months of stonewalling?

The Associated Press may have the answer. AP recently noted that among the peek-a-boo papers were two documents titled, "Loan Policy Analysis." Reports AP, "The documents had separate columns: one showing points 'actl chrgd' Dodd — zero; and a second column showing 'policy' was to charge .250 points on one loan and .375 points on the other. Another heading on the documents said 'reasons for override.' A notation under that heading identified a Countrywide section that approved the policy change for Dodd."

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Associated Press

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd.How does Mr. Dodd explain that one? He may not have had to. The Senate ethicists don't seem to have required either Mr. Dodd or Mr. Conrad to provide sworn testimony. In its letters to Messrs. Conrad and Dodd, the committee referred to the "depositions" it collected from Countrywide employees, but it described only "responses" and "explanations" from the Senators. Mr. Dodd never spoke to committee members or staff, and never communicated directly with them.

When committee Senators wrote to Mr. Dodd to get answers to their questions about his VIP loans, they received a response signed by his attorney Marc Elias of Perkins Coie. We remember former Senator Robert Torricelli providing a sworn deposition before he was admonished by the committee in 2002. Perhaps he should have tried the Dodd strategy.

As for Mr. Conrad, his staff won't say if the Senator answered questions directly or let his lawyers handle it. Either way, he has to be thrilled that his colleagues found no violation of Senate rules, even after he acknowledged last summer that he had received a benefit and promptly donated $10,500 to charity.

We'd also like to know what committee members thought of Robert Feinberg, the former Countrywide loan officer who told us last year that Mr. Dodd received, and knew he was receiving, preferential treatment. The Washington Post reported last month that Mr. Feinberg told the same thing, under oath, to Senate investigators and said that Mr. Conrad also knew he was receiving special treatment. Mr. Feinberg said the same to the minority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Does the committee think he's lying, or that his testimony simply wasn't "substantial" enough? Again, we don't know because the letters released by the ethics committee don't mention Mr. Feinberg.

Mr. Dodd is running for his sixth term next year and will no doubt claim this as vindication. Voters will have to decide if a Banking Committee Chairman who allowed himself even to be considered a VIP by the nation's foremost subprime lender deserves it.

“She’s not a doctor, but she plays one at town hall meetings” — Hannity2009 AUGUST 17tags: health care, News, Politics, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Town Hallsby kathyshaidle

Last week’s notorious health-care town hall hosted by Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee is the gift that keeps on giving.

It’s bad enough that Jackson-Lee interrupted a question from a cancer-survivor constituent to take a cell phone call — then denied having done so, and hinted on CNN that video of the incident had been “doctored.”

But the word “doctored” takes on a whole new meaning, thanks to the latest revelations about what else happened at that embarrassing town hall.

On Friday night, Sean Hannity picked up a story that first broke on conservative websites, all because a lowly blogger dared to ask questions that the mainstream media couldn’t be bothered to raise.

At that town hall meeting, a young woman who described herself as a “general practitioner” stood up to praise Obamacare, and was rewarded with a hug from Jackson-Lee. A photo of that hug accompanied a Houston Chronicle story on the event.

But as Hannity reported, the blogger behind “Patterico’s Pontifications” dug through some readily available Internet data bases, and discovered that “Dr. Roxana Mayer,” wasn’t a doctor at all, but a graduate student in social work at the University of Houston — and a Texas Obama delegate during the 2008 election.

Worse, according to “Patterico”:

“The reporter who wrote the Houston Chronicle story apparently knew that Mayer was an Obama delegate, but didn’t include that detail in her story.” (The paper later edited the caption to the photo, but didn’t issue a formal correction.)

And the story doesn’t end there. “Patterico” thought a woman pictured sitting next to “Dr. Mayer” at the town hall looked familiar. Sure enough, that woman was Maria Isabel. Mayer admitted she’d been invited to attend the town hall by Isabel, whose previous claim to fame had been her appearance in this widely-mocked photo of a 2008 Obama campaign office, where a photo of Che Guevara, the onetime chief executioner for the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba, was prominently displayed:

Maria Isabel: Che fan, Obama campaign worker and town hall attendee

But remember, everyone: “astroturfing” is what those sinister right-wing “tea baggers” are doing at town halls. Democrat events are always completely spontaneous and authentic, and everyone who attends is an honest, ordinary American citizen.

FWIW I believe the cell call was from the talking points people at leftist machine headquarters and they are very well aware of these town hall meetings. If they had something for her to add I assume that they were watching and listening to a live feed or someone texted them for help.

Can you imagine the uproar if the puppet masters were Rove or Cheney intervening with an ongoing constituent meeting in a representative's home district?

The fact that the reporter knew and did not report a key fact and the paper sneakily removes a known falsehood without issuing a correction, explanation or especially without blowing it open themselves into a big new story themselves, casting doubt on the staged, propaganda event ... it reflects on why organizations like the Houston Chronicle are bankrupting themselves. These events are part of the electoral process and a fraud was certainly perpetrated on anyone caring enough to watch. Frankly I resent having to always go beyond mainstream publications to get the rest of the story.

Earlier this week, AT's Rick Moran highlighted the Obama Administration's decision to invest $2 billion to finance offshore drilling in Brazil. Many good questions there, including the pertinent question of why offshore drilling is okay for Brazil, but not for the U.S.

Since the initial story broke late last week, Bloomberg has reported that billionaire Democratic donor George Soros acquired over $800 million in Petrobas stock during the second quarter of 2008, ultimately selling 22 million common shares and acquiring 5.8 million preferred (read "dividend paying") shares recently.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air asks all of the salient questions, including this one:

Is it a coincidence that Obama backer George Soros repositioned himself in Petrobras to get dividends just a few days before Obama committed $2 billion in loans and guarantees for Petrobras' (sic) offshore operations? Hmmmmmmmmmm.

I don't have a smoking gun, but I do have the good sense to recognize when something doesn't pass the smell test. It might well be happenstance that Soros' "repositioning" was completely unrelated to the decision to invest American dollars in Petrobas, but there are too many dots that have at least a tenuous connection to assume that it's a completely innocent coincidence.

Unfortunately, this is just the latest in a long string of issues emanating from the White House that cause Americans to question the integrity and good sense of the Campaigner in Chief's administration. Consider what we've learned in just the past several days.

Senior adviser David Axelrod is still owed $2 million by the advertising firm he ran until leaving after Obama's election. This firm, now run by Axelrod's son, is a key player in the healthcare reform advertising effort.

The administration, which Obama promised would be the most bipartisan ever, has floated a trial balloon to gauge reaction to achieving healthcare reform with only Democrat votes. This came after significant backtracking on the so-called "public option" deemed essential by the far left.

Many Americans are still furious about being spammed by Axelrod with a message about healthcare reform, and the dirty tactics of those opposed to the president's plan. Many are also still incensed about the fact that the White House set up a snitch email account and actively encouraged Americans to report any "disinformation" they heard from others regarding healthcare reform.

The list could go on (the Beer Summit and police "acting stupidly," the push for cap-and-trade, and many more), but the point is made: In less than eight months, the Obama administration already has a well-established track record that stands in opposition to the promises of transparency and the highest ethics. I don't think it stems from ignorance, but instead from Obama's trademark hubris. He knows the smell test exists; he simply thinks he is smart and clever enough to beat it, or, if he's caught, to contort his way out of the consequences.

In over their heads, trying to flood the system by pushing huge reform after huge reform through the system in the best Alinsky style, and severely underestimating the American public's ability to connect dots, Obama et al. have burned through copious amounts of political capital and public goodwill by trying to beat the smell test instead of working with it.

Michael Lisle is a conservative freelance writer in South Carolina who has recently begun blogging at thetruthconquersall.blogspot.com.

***I don't have a smoking gun, but I do have the good sense to recognize when something doesn't pass the smell test. It might well be happenstance that Soros' "repositioning" was completely unrelated to the decision to invest American dollars in Petrobas, but there are too many dots that have at least a tenuous connection to assume that it's a completely innocent coincidence.***

This is to pay Soros back for all his support.Plus it replenishes there own war chest so to speak as Soros we all know is happy to support their radical cause.

Even if there is a smoking gun somewhere we can all forget about anyone looking for it.Not with a leftist controlled governent.Reminds one of the famous cattle futures bribe.

Massachusetts Republicans spoke out today against a proposal by US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, under which Kennedy's Senate seat would be filled by an appointment by Democratic Governor Deval Patrick until a special election could be held. RELATED

House Minority Leader Brad Jones of Reading said the proposal was based not on "what's best for the whole Commonwealth but based on what's best for one political party."

"The hypocrisy is astounding. If we had a Republican governor right now, would we be getting that same letter?" he said.

“Everybody feels for Senator Kennedy, but the laws shouldn’t be created to benefit particular individuals, it should be principled,” said Senate minority leader Richard Tisei of Wakefield.

In a personal, sometimes wistful letter sent Tuesday to Patrick, Democratic Senate President Therese Murray, and Democratic House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, Kennedy, the ailing liberal lion, asked the leaders to change the succession law to guarantee that Massachusetts will not lack a Senate vote when his seat becomes vacant, the Globe reported this morning.

Kennedy's poignant acknowledgment of his mortality comes at a critical time in the national health care debate. Although Kennedy does not specifically mention his cancer or the health care debate raging in Washington, the implication of his letter is clear: He is trying to make sure that the leading cause in his life, better health coverage for all, advances in the event of his death.

Top Democrats at the State House remained resolutely silent on the issue today. But one Democratic lawmaker said he was opposed.

“I’m not in favor of it,” said Representative Brian Wallace of South Boston. “I’ve got great respect for Senator Kennedy, but I think we’ve been down this road. I’m in favor of having an election, there’s nothing fairer than that. It just opens up a whole can of worms all again.”

“I don’t agree with it,” said state Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill, who left the Democratic Party last month to lay the groundwork for a gubernatorial run as an independent. “A senator should be directly elected by the people."

In his letter, which was obtained by the Globe, Kennedy said that he backs the current succession law, enacted in 2004, which gives voters the power to fill a US Senate vacancy. But he said the state and country need two Massachusetts senators.

“I strongly support that law and the principle that the people should elect their senator,’’ Kennedy wrote. “I also believe it is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election.’’

Under the 2004 law, if Kennedy were to die or step down, voters would select his successor in a special election to be held within five months of the vacancy. But the law makes no provisions for Massachusetts to be represented in the Senate in the interim. In the meantime, President Obama’s plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system, the fate of which may hinge on one or two votes, could come before Congress.

“I am now writing to you about an issue that concerns me deeply, the continuity of representation for Massachusetts, should a vacancy occur,’’ Kennedy wrote.

To ensure that the special election is fair, the senator also urged that the governor obtain an “explicit personal commitment’’ from his appointee not to seek the office on a permanent basis.

Separately, a Kennedy family confidant, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the letter was private, said the senator’s wife, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, is not interested in being a temporary appointee or running in a special election.

“Her focus is her husband and her family,’’ the confidant said. “To her, there is only one Senator Kennedy.’’

DeLeo and Murray, in a joint statement to the Globe Wednesday, did not address the substance of Kennedy’s request, saying: “We have great respect for the senator and what he continues to do for our Commonwealth and our nation. It is our hope that he will continue to be a voice for the people of Massachusetts as long as he is able.’’

Patrick said in a statement: “It’s typical of Ted Kennedy to be thinking ahead and about the people of Massachusetts, when the rest of us are thinking about him. Diane and I continue to pray for the restoration of the senator’s health and the comfort of his family.’’

Kennedy advisers were adamant Wednesday that the timing of the letter did not reflect any imminent emergency in the health of the senator, who has been battling brain cancer since May 2008. Rather, it was sent this week after the Globe began making inquiries to key Beacon Hill officials over murmurings that some politicians were pushing for a change in the law.

Kennedy aides said the senator never liked the five-month vacancy created by the 2004 law, but his dislike took on new urgency because Senate Democrats could need every vote possible on health care legislation.

The family confidant stressed that even with his deteriorating health, Kennedy continues to speak with staff and Senate colleagues. If his vote were needed, there exists every possibility he would fly to Washington again to cast it, Kennedy allies said.

Still, Kennedy’s letter is a candid acknowledgment that his long Senate career might be coming to an end, a historic development for both Massachusetts and the nation. He is the last of three Kennedy brothers whose careers helped define postwar Democratic politics.

“For almost 47 years, I have had the privilege of representing the people of Massachusetts in the United States Senate,’’ Kennedy wrote in his letter.

Serving in the Senate, he wrote, “has been - and still is - the greatest honor of my public life.’’

Advisers, including Senator John F. Kerry, began discussions months ago about pushing for a change in the state law.

Kennedy’s letter was drafted in early July, when he was writing several other letters, including a private note to the pope that Obama hand-delivered. The letter to state officials was kept secret, not sent until this week.

Kerry said yesterday that Kennedy had been considering this issue since the early summer.

“It is something he talked to me about some time ago,’’ he said in an interview.

Kerry rejected any notion that the letter signaled an immediate end to Kennedy’s nearly half-century in office, insisting that his colleague has been active in shaping the health care legislation in recent weeks.

“I don’t think this signals anything,’’ Kerry said. “He has been fully engaged. . . . If [Senate majority leader] Harry Reid required 60 votes tomorrow, Ted Kennedy would be on a plane and be down in the Senate to vote.’’

Kerry added that he speaks with the senator regularly and visited him several weeks ago at Kennedy’s Hyannis Port home.

Kennedy’s request puts Massachusetts lawmakers in a delicate position. On one hand, his personal appeal would probably have some sway.

But resistance on Beacon Hill to tinkering with the 2004 law is strong, with Democratic lawmakers nervous about being accused of engineering a self-serving change to help their party.

Massachusetts governors used to have the power to fill Senate vacancies, as happens in many other states, until the Legislature made the change five years ago.

Democratic lawmakers, then as now in the majority, did not want to give Governor Mitt Romney the chance to fill Kerry’s seat with a Republican if Kerry won the presidency.

Patrick, meanwhile, has dismissed past suggestions that the state change the law back to give him the power to fill a Senate vacancy.

Those who would run for Kennedy’s seat could also pressure state lawmakers to resist changing the law, out of concern that toying with the special election could somehow damage their prospects.

In Washington, there are increasing concerns among Democrats and health care advocates over Kennedy’s absence from Capitol Hill. His voice has often been one of the loudest and most influential on health care.

The Democratic caucus’s 60-vote majority is already tenuous, with several moderate Democrats having expressed skepticism about the health care bill.

Kennedy’s having not attended the funeral of his sister, Eunice, last week heightened concerns that he would be unable to return to the Senate for a vote.

President Obama has not spoken to Kennedy about the proposal, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today.

"He has not talked to Senator Kennedy about this. The last time they spoke was several weeks ago about health care. I have not had the chance to talk to him this morning about Senator Kennedy's letter."

The attorney general’s office turned up the heat Monday on a national organization at the heart of a voter registration fraud investigation.

Christopher Edwards, 33, the former Las Vegas field director for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, pleaded guilty to two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters.

As part of a plea agreement, Edwards will testify against the other two defendants in the case — ACORN and its former regional director, Amy Busefink.

The anti-poverty organization has local chapters in 100 cities across the country and national offices in New Orleans, New York and Washington.

State investigators consider Edwards the mastermind of an illegal incentive program at the local ACORN office that, with the approval of Busefink and national ACORN officials, encouraged the collection of fraudulent voter registration forms during the 2008 campaign season.

Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said late Monday that Edwards has “agreed to admit his culpability, accept his punishment, and provide valuable testimony against the others involved.”

But Las Vegas lawyers for ACORN and Busefink said they doubted Edwards’ testimony would hurt their clients because ACORN officials were kept in the dark about what he was doing.

“I’m not concerned about it,” said Lisa Rasmussen, who represents ACORN. “He was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.”

Kevin Stolworthy, who represents Busefink, added, “I don’t believe they have anything in writing supporting what he’s going to testify about. Our position is, he was told not to do it.”

In his plea agreement, however, Edwards said that from Aug. 1 to Oct. 31, 2008, he unlawfully conspired with ACORN and Busefink to create a local bonus incentive program, known as “Blackjack,” giving ACORN canvassers an additional $5 for turning in 21 or more registration cards per shift. ACORN allegedly required its workers to submit at least 20 voter registration forms a day to keep their jobs.

It is illegal in Nevada to attach incentives to gathering registration forms because it encourages canvassers to submit fraudulent forms.

When the indictments were announced in May, Cortez Masto said that by structuring the compensation around a quota system, “ACORN facilitated voter registration fraud in the state.”

About the same time in Pittsburgh, a half-dozen ACORN workers were charged with violating a similar Pennsylvania law prohibiting quotas and other incentives in voter registration drives.

That case was put on hold last month after the American Civil Liberties Union there filed suit on behalf of ACORN challenging the constitutionality of the state law.

Edwards’ cooperation here is not expected to have an effect in Pennsylvania, but ACORN has a lot more riding on the outcome of the Nevada case. The organization is not charged in Pittsburgh, but is facing 13 felony counts in Las Vegas.

Edwards’ first opportunity to testify against ACORN and Busefink will come Sept. 29 at a preliminary hearing to determine whether ACORN and Busefink should stand trial.

In return for his testimony, the attorney general’s office is dismissing 13 felony charges against Edwards and recommending probation for concurrent sentences of one year behind bars on the two gross misdemeanor charges, a $500 fine and 16 hours of community service.

Edwards appeared before Kevin Williams, the district court’s arraignment master, on Monday wearing a shirt and tie and dress slacks. When Williams asked Edwards what his plea was, he responded, “Guilty” in a soft voice.

As he left the courtroom with his lawyer at his side, Edwards declined to comment.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Conrad Hafen, who is prosecuting the case, also had no comment afterward.

The case dates back to Oct. 7, when state investigators, armed with a search warrant, first sought evidence of voter registration fraud at ACORN’s Las Vegas office.

Allegations that some registration applications were completed with false information and that other applications were attempts to register the same person several times led investigators to raid the office, officials said at the time.

The Kennedy succession story says: "The hypocrisy is astounding". Quite an understatement. Not just double, full-circle hypocrisy, but the arrogance they must have to do it so openly and so repeatedly. Should make the Chicago political mafia blush. They played around the rule to save a seat for Teddy before he turned 30. Then they changed the succession rule for John Kerry to ascend to the President. Oops, not needed and they fully exposed themselves for the mockery of principles they possess. Now they fear losing the 60th vote so they don't want to wait for those clumsy voters to name a replacement when it turns out ironically and hypocritically that the D-Governor could do it just as well, and so much faster. Coercive healthcare could be on the line to them so the ends easily justify the means.

BBG, thanks for posting the ACORN case update. They mix their commitment to take down liberty and capitalism with a lot of do-gooding like helpin' folks register to vote and taking over the census. Unfortunately they demand our public money to take down our system, and getting the wrong people to vote can be a felony.

ACORN Turns in Florida Workers on Voter Fraud ChargesThe FBI and state authorities were making arrests Wednesday of workers hired to register voters by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

Cristina CorbinFOXNews.comWednesday, September 09, 2009

Arrest warrants have been issued in Miami for 11 people suspected of falsifying information on hundreds of voter registration cards -- including registering the name of the late actor Paul Newman -- the Florida state attorney told FOXNews.com.

The FBI and state authorities took seven people into custody Wednesday as it issued 11 arrest warrants for voter registration fraud in Homestead, Fla., in June 2008.

Florida state attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle said 11 workers hired to register voters by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- or ACORN -- submitted 888 fraudulent names. She said the names included people who were already registered voters, fictitious names, and the name of the late actor Paul Newman, who died in Sept. 2008.

Fernandez-Rundle said ACORN alerted her office after it reviewed hundreds of voter registration cards it suspected were fraudulent. She said that none of the names in question actually voted.

"While they were attempting to steal from ACORN, they were stealing from our electoral process and we just will not tolerate that," she said.

Fernandez-Rundle said the workers, who were being paid 10 dollars an hour to register voters, face anywhere from 2 to 37 counts of "false swearing in connection with voting or elections" and "submission of false voter registration information."

"They were attempting to justify their hourly wages," she said.

In a statement sent to FOXNews.com. on Wednesday, Florida ACORN board member Leroy Bell said, "We want to commend the state attorney for taking decisive action. Today's action demonstrates the seriousness we brought to the task of not only expanding the electorate, but also of protecting the integrity of the voting process. "

"Over the last five years thousands of dedicated people have worked or volunteered with Florida ACORN and succeeded in helping hundreds of thousands of Florida citizens -- especially African-Americans, Latinos, low-income and young people -- to apply to become registered voters. Fortunately, our quality control managers and the systems we developed ensured their ability to spot the isolated wrongdoing by these 11 workers who tried to pass off phony forms instead of doing their work," he said.

Bell added that the government should do more to modernize the voter registration system, saying ACORN would "prefer that Florida and the United States adopt a more modern voter registration system where getting everyone on the rolls is the government's job and mission."

ACORN's activities were frequently questioned during the 2008 presidential election. The group, which claims to be a non-partisan grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people, came under fire in 2007 when Washington State filed felony charges against several paid ACORN employees and supervisors for more than 1,700 fraudulent voter registrations. In March 2008, an ACORN worker in Pennsylvania was sentenced for making 29 phony voter registration forms.

At what point do the Democrats acknowledge that all the money they've been throwing at ACORN is being used to prime a pump that then subverts American law and values? Or perhaps that's the whole point?

Two more ACORN officials were fired Friday after a second video surfaced showing staffers in the community organizers' Washington office offering to help a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute acquire illegal home loans that would help them set up a brothel.

The firings came less than 24 hours after another pair of ACORN officials from the group's Baltimore office were canned for instructing the "pimp" and "prostitute" how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador that pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes.

Both of the encounters were videotaped on a hidden camera wielded by 25-year-old independent filmmaker James O'Keefe, posing as the pimp — tapes that have ignited calls for investigations of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

The group's leaders said Friday they were "appalled and angry" at what their staffers had done, but insisted the videos were part of a political "smear" campaign and not representative of the institution as a whole.

"But that does not excuse the behavior of the employees," wrote ACORN's president Alton Bennet and executive director Mike Shea. "We have fired them and are initiating an internal review of practices and reminding all staff of their obligation to uphold the highest legal and ethical standards."

Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., called for a hearing to investigate ACORN's tax filing assistance programs following the release of the videos he said suggested multiple incidents of tax fraud.

"In light of the apparent flagrant and willful attempts to suborn tax fraud, I ... (am seeking) a hearing of the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee as soon as practicable to investigate ACORN’s activities," he said Friday.

O'Keefe, the filmmaker, was accompanied by 20-year-old Hannah Giles, who posed as a prostitute. On a videotape of their visit to ACORN's Washington's office, they are seen receiving guidance to establish the woman as the sole proprietor of a bogus company to mask the nature of her business.

"She's not going to put on (the loan application) that she's doing prostitution ... she doesn't have to," a now-fired ACORN staffer says. "You don't have to sit back and tell people what you do."

• Click here to see video.

The ACORN staffer is heard suggesting that O'Keefe can purchase a house, and as the landlord, if he is ever questioned by authorities, he can say he was unaware of the illegal business going on inside.

"[W]hen the police ask you, (tell them) you don't know where (the money is) coming from," the staffer said. "We are looking out for you."

The ACORN employee later suggests that O'Keefe, who said he had a budding political career, not linger at the house in case people "put the dots together" and leave him "smeared and tarnished" by his association with his prostitute girlfriend. She should keep her business "low key," the employee continued, saying "You have neighbors and they see stuff. Don't think that people won't get on the telephone and call Fox."

One day before the Washington video was shot, O'Keefe and Giles sought help from ACORN workers in Baltimore, who told the pair how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador that they said they said they wanted to import as prostitutes.

As he did in the taping in Baltimore, O'Keefe told the Washington officers that he had plans to bring as many as 10 women from El Salvador to work as prostitutes in Giles' "business."

"There's like 10 girls," O'Keefe says. "There's ten El Salvodoreans."

The ACORN staffer replies, "I understand what you are saying."

ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — calls itself a network of families "working together for social justice and stronger communities," according to its Web site.

The organization has been accused by conservatives and Republicans of committing fraud in voter registration drives around the country, and reaction to the videotape came swiftly after its release on Thursday.

"Taxpayers should be outraged that their money has gone to an organization that, in addition to facing charges of voter fraud and tax violations, is willing to facilitate prostitution," said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

"As this video confirms, ACORN continues to operate as a criminal enterprise."

The first videotape, made in the Baltimore offices of ACORN, was made public Thursday on the political blog BigGovernment.com. That night, after portions of the video were aired throughout the day on FOX News, the group fired the two women who assisted O'Keefe and Giles in Baltimore.

James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, two guerilla documentarians, have accomplished what neither the Republican party’s sense of outrage nor the Democratic party’s sense of decency could: They have inspired the federal government to begin cutting its ties with ACORN, the shady “community activist” organization that helped bring Barack Obama to power.

The set-up was both risible and shocking. Mr. O’Keefe and Miss Giles, who look for all the world like young Republican country-clubbers dressed for a tasteless costume party, walked into a number of ACORN offices and managed to pass themselves off as a pimp and a prostitute. They informed ACORN staffers that they were looking to set up a whorehouse and to traffic some children into the country for the purposes of prostitution. ACORN’s official mission is to facilitate affordable housing and social services for low-income families, not to facilitate child trafficking, but the staffers responded with advice on getting on welfare, claiming their underage victims as dependents, evading law enforcement, cheating on their taxes, defrauding federal housing authorities, et cetera ad nauseam. One ACORN staffer advised Miss Giles to bury her illicit sex-trade earnings in a tin in her back yard.

Asked about housing assistance, an ACORN staffer explains: “Honesty is not going to get the house. That’s why you've probably been denied. . . . Don't say you’re a prostitute thing or whatever.” Similar sagacity followed.

This was not a single, isolated incident. Mr. O’Keefe and Miss Giles took their chinchilla cape and hot pants, respectively, to a number of ACORN offices: in Baltimore, Washington, New York City. The results were similar for each outing. Mr. O’Keefe says there are more and yesterday released another video, of a California ACORN office.

The Census Bureau has severed its relationship with ACORN, and House Republicans are pressing the Internal Revenue Service to do the same. The Senate has voted to deny any future Housing and Urban Development funding to the organization. (Whether Nancy Pelosi’s House will follow suit is not yet known.) Somebody in Washington must be forced to answer this question: Why would any government agency have anything to do with this motley crew? Heads already are rolling at ACORN, and they should be rolling in the offices of the government agencies that approved these relationships. HUD is bad enough, but letting ACORN within spitting distance of the IRS bespeaks defective judgment. The group is deeply tapped into Washington: ACORN relies on government money for some 40 percent of its revenue, and that fact is a national disgrace.

President Obama’s ties to ACORN are of long standing and are widely documented. ACORN, which ran a number of voter-registration drives rife with fraud (Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck being two notable registrees, along with one Mr. Jive Turkey of Ohio) is at its core a political operation, one that was an important presence in Obama’s community-organizing days, as well as in his campaign. The organization has enjoyed a degree of political protection in Washington: Rep. Barney Frank was called upon by the Consumer Rights League to investigate ACORN in his role as an overseer of housing and mortgage matters. He refused to do so.

ACORN now alleges that the videotapes were altered — but they fired the employees in question, which does not suggest gross distortion or an innocent misunderstanding. As more videos come out, this story will get worse. Not that this story is a story so far as the mainstream media is concerned: Outside of Fox News, which aired the videos, the media has abdicated on ACORN coverage. This is the sort of sting video that used to be the bread-and-butter of 60 Minutes and other investigative television journalism. Now they look on the story with contempt; Charlie Gibson sneered that it was the sort of thing better left to “the cables.”

This is serious business — advising people how to defraud the government in furtherance of child prostitution and human trafficking — but it took two twentysomething documentarians to get it on our national radar. We’d argue that Congress should investigate, but who would be put in charge? Barney Frank? Nancy Pelosi? A blue-ribbon committee selected by President Obama? By their fruits (and nuts) ye shall know them.

By JAMES TARANTO The Acorn scandal continues to mushroom. Yesterday BigGovernment.com published videos from a fourth Acorn office visit by freelance investigators James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles. As Johnny Carson used to say, it's weird, wild stuff. The woman manning the Acorn office in San Bernardino, Calif., Tresa Kaelke, responds to the pair's requests for help setting up a child-prostitution ring by claiming to be an ex-prostitute herself. "Heidi Fleiss is my hero!" she exclaims.

When Giles claims her former pimp abused her, Kaelke tells of having been abused by an ex-husband--then confesses to his premeditated murder. San Bernardino's finest are looking into the claim: "Investigators have been in contact with the involved party's known former husbands, who are alive and well." Thus her claims "do not appear to be factual." Politico's Ben Smith interprets this as meaning that the confession was "a joke" and writes that according to Acorn, this "demonstrates that the employee there was playing along with the outlandish visitors, not actually indulging them."

Smith is writing rather sloppily here, since indulging and playing along are more or less the same thing. In any case, another Acornite gave a somewhat different, but highly entertaining, explanation to the San Bernardino Sun:

At ACORN's office Tuesday, office supervisor Christina Spach told reporters she was not authorized to comment and that an official spokesperson would comment later in the day."Just to be clear, ACORN in not [sic] in the prostitution business," Spach said.Spach said she did not wish to be quoted, but did confirm that Kaelke is an ACORN employee. She would not permit reporters to speak to Kaelke and said ACORN employees do not typically make statements to the media, instead relying on their members to articulate the group's positions and activities.In a subsequent telephone conversation on Tuesday, Spach said Kaelke pretended to cooperate with O'Keefe and Giles because she feared for her safety."She was in an office all by herself," Spach said. "She felt unsafe in their company."Spach, who identified herself as Kaelke's supervisor, said Kaelke lied to the undercover bloggers because she was afraid and wanted to "come across as a strong individual.""It was a defense mechanism," Spach said.Think about it: When you feel threatened, isn't "Heidi Fleiss is my hero" the first thing you blurt out?

Government officials continue responding to the Acorn revelations. The New York Post reports that Andrew Cuomo, New York's state attorney general, "yesterday launched an investigation into pork-barrel grants given to ACORN by state lawmakers, as City Council Speaker Christine Quinn froze all city funding earmarked for the scandal-scared [sic] community-activism organization"--this in response to the third released set of videos, from Acorn's Brooklyn office.

The Wall Street Journal urges the U.S. Justice Department to undertake a criminal investigation of Acorn. This column echoes that call, although we wonder if the Obama administration is compromised here. The president, who as a candidate touted his background as a "community organizer," has extensive ties to Acorn. In February 2008, the Acorn Political Action Committee endorsed Obama over Hillary Clinton, and Obama's campaign Web site, Organizing for America, boasted of the candidate's support for the group:

When Obama met with ACORN leaders in November, he reminded them of his history with ACORN and his beginnings in Illinois as a Project Vote organizer, a nonprofit focused on voter rights and education. Senator Obama said, "I come out of a grassroots organizing background. That's what I did for three and half years before I went to law school. That's the reason I moved to Chicago was to organize. So this is something that I know personally, the work you do, the importance of it. I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work."And in August 2008, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that the Obama campaign paid more than $800,000 to an Acorn "offshoot" for "get out the vote" projects.

Obama worked for Acorn and Acorn worked for Obama. That doesn't mean the president is implicated in any wrongdoing, but it suggests at least that the worse things get for Acorn, the more embarrassing it is for him. If the Justice Department fails to prosecute, it invariably would raise suspicions of political favoritism. This column does not care for special prosecutors, but the case for appointing one would seem to be stronger here than usual.

This group is a racketeering conspiracy corrupting democracy across state lines for more than a decade. Unbelievable that they are also federally funded, not just a hack, anti-capitalism leftist Marxist activist group. And that our President is an alum. Which article in the constitution authorizes their millions and decades of funding?----My previous comments tying ACORN to the US Census were meant a bit tongue in cheek, that these types already working the neighborhoods would be the ones that would seek and get the Census jobs especially with the leftist machine holding power. In a worst nightmare scenario I didn't imagine there was actually an official, contractual relationship!---On the silver lining side, a short time ago I felt like I was whining to the only 3 people in America who also already knew what a danger the group posed, and now ACORN is becoming exposed and infamous. If there was a right wing equivalent - just for the extreme views, not the corruption and methods - a candidate's affiliation during the primaries would have been a disqualification because of unelectability in a general election.

The videos begin to expose the fact that these people oppose all the principles the founders and the republic once represented.

The NEA is the largest funder of arts in the country. The link has the NEA conference call plea for help with an all star lineup from the White House asking funded artists to support the President's agenda on a host of NON-ART related issues. Just like ACORN working their neighborhoods, they just presume you are with them politically. George Will speculated that a few laws were broken.

White House officials say they are enacting specific steps to make sure such a call never happens again.

Today White House officials are meeting with the chiefs of staff of the executive branch agencies to discuss rules and best practices in this area, a conversation during which they will be told that that while White House lawyers do not believe that the NEA call violated the law, “the appearance issues troubled some participants,” Burton said. “It is the policy of the administration that grant decisions should be on the merits and that government officials should avoid even creating the incorrect appearance that politics has anything to do with these decisions.”

After listening to the transcript and the audio posted at the conservative website BigHollywood.Breitbart.com — secretly recorded by Los Angeles filmmaker Patrick Couriellech — Melanie Sloan, executive director of the good-government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told ABC News that the call was “disturbing.”

“Government agencies are not supposed to be engaged in political activities,” Sloan said. “Here, because they didn’t veer off into ‘This is about the election,’ where you’d get into violations of the Hatch Act, it’s not illegal. But it doesn’t look good — it looks terrible. It’s inappropriate.”The Hatch Act restricts the political activity of executive branch employees of the federal government.*

Said Sloan of the conference call: “It’s not what the NEA was created for, it’s not supposed to be helping the president’s agenda; that’s not the point.”

Burton added that the White House will be issuing a formal memo for White House staff “to that effect and will be doing training sessions and personal visits with staff here to make sure the message gets across.”Sergant seemed to have some indication on the call that maybe he was coming close to the line of inappropriateness if not crossing it.You can read the piece in full here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------ACORN has filed a lawsuit against the makers of a hidden-camera video that showed employees of its Baltimore office giving tax advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute.

The liberal activist group contends that the audio portion of the video was obtained illegally because Maryland requires two-party consent to create sound recordings.

The two employees seen in the video were fired after it was posted online. The lawsuit says the employees, Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams, suffered "extreme emotional distress."

The multimillion-dollar lawsuit seeks damages from James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, who played the pimp and prostitute in the videos, and from conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart, who posted the videos on his Web site.

From the Leftjudiciary: Indiana Court Tosses Voter IDDespite a significantly higher voter turnout last year than in most previous presidential elections, as well as Barack Obama's narrowly carrying the state, the Indiana State Court of Appeals threw out the state's voter identification law -- a statute that had already passed muster with the U.S. Supreme Court -- claiming the law wasn't equally applied to those casting absentee ballots. The 3-0 ruling, made by a panel of judges appointed by Democrat governors, was blasted by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels as "an act of judicial arrogance" and "transparently" partisan.

Predictably, state Democrat leaders hailed the ruling, claiming, even in the face of those increased turnout numbers, that the law requiring voters to present a form of identification bearing their photo "disenfranchised hundreds if not thousands of voters." Heaven forbid, after all, that voters are who they say they are and vote only once.

Hsu Sentenced for Ponzi SchemeNorman Hsu, a prominent fundraiser for Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, was sentenced Tuesday to 24 years in prison for "illegally funneling money to U.S. political candidates and for defrauding investors in a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme," reports The Wall Street Journal. Clinton returned $850,000 in funds raised by Hsu, who had already been on the lam since 1992 after charges of grand theft. Knowing the Clintons, that was probably a résumé enhancement. Meanwhile, the operators of the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security remain at large.

Because the effort failed these details are likely to slip down the memory hole rather quickly. Note them now before they do.==============

All the president’s Olympic cronies by Michelle MalkinCreators SyndicateCopyright 2009

When government officials play the Olympic lottery, taxpayers lose. That has been the disastrous experience of host cities around the world (Forbes magazine even dubbed the post-Olympic financial burden the “Host City Curse”). So, why are President Obama and his White House entourage headed to Copenhagen, Denmark this week to push a fiscally doomed Chicago 2016 bid? Political payback.

Bringing the games to the Windy City is Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s “vision.” The entrenched Democratic power-broker – in office since 1989 – would like to cap off his graft-tainted career with a glorious, $4 billion bread and circuses production. The influential Daley machine backed Barack Obama for the presidential primary. Obama lavished praise on Daley’s stewardship of the city. Longtime Daley cronies helped pave Obama’s path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Now, they’re returning the favor for their hometown boss.

Senior White House adviser and Obama consigliere Valerie Jarrett is a Daley loyalist who worked as his deputy chief of staff, deputy corporation counsel, and planning commissioner. She hired the future First Lady of the United States, then-Michelle Robinson, as a mayoral assistant. Jarrett went on to serve as president and CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate firm with a massive stake in federally-funded Chicago public housing projects.

One of those public-private partnerships, the Grove Parc Plaza Apartments, was run into the ground under Jarrett’s watch. Federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex a bottom-of-the-barrel 11 on a 100-point scale. “They are rapidly displacing poor people, and these companies are profiting from this displacement,” Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle of Southside Together Organizing for Power, a community group that seeks to help tenants stay in the same neighborhoods, told the Boston Globe last year. “The same exact people who ran these places into the ground,” the private companies paid to build and manage the city’s affordable housing, “now are profiting by redeveloping them.”

Coincidentally enough, Grove Parc — now targeted for demolition as a result of years of neglect by Obama’s developer friends—sits in the shadows of the proposed site of the city’s 2016 Olympics Stadium

Jarrett served as vice chair of Chicago’s 2016 Summer Olympics bid committee before moving to the White House, where she has helmed a new “White House Office on Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport” with an undisclosed budget and staff. It’s not just taxpayers in cash-strapped Chicago who should be worried about this field of schemes. Crain’s Chicago Business reports that Jarrett and Chicago 2016 committee member Lori Healey met this month with federal officials at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development “to discuss financing options” for the estimated $1 billion Olympic Village.

The door is open and the administration is “willing to meet and listen” to any federal subsidy proposals, Jarrett said. Hey, what happened to Obama’s tough rules on interest-conflicted lobbying by his administration officials?

A majority of Chicagoans who live in pay-for-play-plagued Cook County oppose public funding for the Olympic party. The city has more than a half-billion-dollar deficit – and just received word that its Olympic insurance policy will cover only about $1.1 billion of the $3.8-billion operating budget drawn up by Daley. Cost overruns, fraud, and union-inflated contracts are inevitable. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs defended President Obama’s all-out campaign for Chicago’s 2016 Olympics bid by claiming America will see a “tangible economic benefit.”

But as is always the case with sports corporate welfare disguised as “economic development,” an elite few will benefit far more than others.

Take senior White House adviser and Obama campaign guru David Axelrod. He’s been a Daley loyalist since 1989, when he signed up as a political consultant for the mayor’s first run. Axelrod’s public relations firm, Chicago-based AKPD Message and Media, has pitched in work for the Chicago 2016 committee. It is unknown how much AKPD has received for its services – or how much they’ll make in future income if the bid is successful. AKPD currently owes Axelrod $2 million.

The head of the Chicago 2016 bid committee is Patrick Ryan, chairman of the Aon Corporation and a co-chair of Obama’s deep-pocketed presidential inaugural committee. (Under Ryan’s watch at Aon, the company settled a massive corruption probe with 3 states for $190 million. More here on Ryan/Aon/Daley dealings More on corruptocrat Chicago Republicans like Ryan and others here.)

Also on both of those committees: Obama confidante Penny Pritzker, who in addition chairs the Olympic Village Subcommittee and is president of Pritzker Realty Group – a mega-developer in Illinois that could reap untold millions in project work if the Daley Machine/White House campaign succeeds.

Former Pritzker executive and Obama campaign treasurer Martin Nesbitt is also on the bid committee – and serves as Mayor Daley’s chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority.

Another bid committee member, Michael Scott Jr., is “trying to develop a for-profit real estate project that would sit within feet of the cycling venue if Chicago wins the 2016 Summer Games,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

It takes a crony-filled White House to raise a Chicago Olympic village. Daley and Obama will get the glory. America will get stuck with the bill.

The failure of the crony contracts to build the Olympic village may turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the young President. He gets the credit at the home precinct for putting it all on the line for them and averts the scandals that were certain to follow.----Beware you charity givers that most do-gooding in the inner cities is welfare and dependency supporting redistribution along with opposition to private property rights and support for public and private takings, laced in scandal and corruption (my humble observation). ----http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/02/AR2009100205261.html

ACORN Losing Funding From Big Foundations

By Susan KinzieWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, October 3, 2009

The liberal political organizing group ACORN, battered by the release of embarrassing videos and allegations of financial mismanagement and fraud, has also been losing support from several major foundations.

The Ford Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Marguerite Casey Foundation and Bank of America have stopped funding the group and its affiliates over the past year and a half.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a network that helps low-income families with housing, voter registration and other issues, receives about 10 percent of its $25 million annual budget from federal grants, according to Brian Kettenring, deputy director of national operations. The rest comes from foundations, membership dues and private donations.

2010 Census Still a Boondoggle for the Leftby Kyle OlsonWhile there may have been a collective sigh of relief across America after the news that the Census Bureau severed ties with ACORN, it made me wonder who other Census partners were.In short, ACORN or not, the 2010 census will be an organizing tool for the American Left.Here is a partial list of other census partners, according to the Census website:AARPA. Phillip Randolph InstituteAFL-CIOAmerican Federation of Government EmployeesAFSCMEAmerican Federation of TeachersCoalition of Labor Union WomenCoalition of Black Trade UnionistsCommunity Action PartnershipFamilies USAInternational Brotherhood of TeamstersLabor Council for the Latin American AdvancementLeague of Women Voters of the United StatesNational Black Justice CoalitionNational Council of La RazaNational Education AssociationPride at WorkRainbow Push CoalitionService Employees International UnionSouthern Coalition for Social JusticeUnited WorkersWorkforce AllianceMy problem all along is that overtly political organizations, say SEIU or ACORN, would be out collecting sensitive information on Americans. What would stop them from zapping off one copy of personal information for themselves as they submit it to the Census Bureau? The federal government We will essentially be paying organized labor and “social justice” organizations to recruit new members.With such a tight grip on the Census by the Obama administration and its allies, one wonders what the end result will be and if it can be trusted.

"What would stop them from zapping off one copy of personal information for themselves as they submit it to the Census Bureau? The federal government We will essentially be paying organized labor and “social justice” organizations to recruit new members."

Luckily they have a "firewall" (Lol) between activities partisan-political and all the taxpayer funded, Marxist do-gooding that they do. I heard that directly from the head of ACORN.

Also reassuring is that the incident in Baltimore (and in New York, Washington, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Boston, Minneapolis, San Diego and Seattle) was an isolated incident.

If anyone out there has ever seen a picture of this firewall, please post it.---

The constitution authorizes and mandates the count of the number of people in your household. Where in the constitution does it empower the federal government to coerce answers on anything else??

The list of 'Census Partners' is scary and obnoxious. What about naming rights, will it soon be called the Pepsi or Bud Light Census? In the meantime maybe we can just call it the ACORN or Bill Ayers Census.

Did I really see La Raza in charge of counting legal immigrants for congressional representation?

If you think moderate Democrats are afraid of voting for ObamaCare, you should see how they react to a potential vote on the Countrywide Financial loan scandal.

The House oversight committee was scheduled to meet on Thursday afternoon to mark up several minor pieces of legislation. Days before the meeting, California Republican Darrell Issa notified committee Chairman Edolphus Towns that Mr. Issa would call for a vote to subpoena Countrywide documents from Bank of America, which bought the failed subprime lender last year. Recall that, under the "Friends of Angelo" program, named for former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad received sweetheart deals on home mortgages. Mr. Issa wants to uncover the full story on Countrywide's effort to influence Washington policy makers.

Mr. Towns, a New York Democrat who also received mortgages from the unit that processed the VIP loans but claims he received no favors, has opposed such a subpoena. But can he count on his Democratic colleagues to vote it down? Perhaps Mr. Towns would rather not find out. Mr. Issa showed up for the scheduled 2 p.m. markup on Thursday hoping that a few Democrats would vote his way and allow the investigation to proceed. Then a strange thing happened: As Mr. Issa and the GOP members of the committee sat waiting for the meeting to begin, Democrats huddled in a back room without explanation. Thirty-five minutes later, the committee announced that the meeting had been postponed indefinitely.

A committee press release later claimed the postponement was "due to conflicts" with a markup occurring at the same time in the financial services committee. But Mr. Issa's staff videotaped several financial services members leaving the back-room gathering with Mr. Towns at the conclusion of the meeting. If members were there to confab with Chairman Towns, obviously they weren't at any finance committee markup -- suggesting the real "conflict" was between Democrats over whether to keep stonewalling the Countrywide matter.

Just when you thought it was safe to visit an ACORN office again, yet another video was released this week at BigGovernment.com. James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the young conservative activists who posed as a pimp and prostitute in order to get ACORN's advice on tax evasion and other illegal activities, released a sixth video putting the lie to the organization's claim to have "thrown out" the pair from its Philadelphia office. The same employee who claimed she showed them the door is on camera in the newest video giving them the same advice on illegal activities that they received at five other ACORN offices -- and the conversation lasted for 32 minutes.

The audio is frequently muted because of ACORN's legal action against O'Keefe and Giles, but Andrew Breitbart, whose BigGovernment.com Web site first aired the videos, has challenged ACORN to allow him to play the full audio. O'Keefe said, "We call upon ACORN to state publicly now that it has no objection to the public release of any of its employees' oral statements to us. If they are interested in the truth, why wouldn't they do so?" Furthermore, O'Keefe asks, "Why did the Philadelphia press report that we were kicked out? Will those reporters now print corrections? [Will the] Washington Post print a second correction?" Don't hold your breath.

The ACORN thread was supposed to be a place for a few side note comments about an obscure organization that operates in the inner cities of America that recruits 'welfare rights' support quietly without really telling people that they oppose all of the founding principles of our country. Now they have entrenched power all the way up to the Oval Office and the funding committees in congress.

A liberal 'friend' of mine was sarcastically making fun of conservatives by saying that some little "acorn" is now the greatest threat this country has ever faced. I waited my turn and replied that except for the sarcasm, I agree whole-heartedly; we face a threat from within that is greater than any foreign enemy we have ever faced.----------http://www.powerlineblog.com/

ACORN Mounts a ComebackOctober 28, 2009 Posted by John at 6:37 PM

Just a few weeks ago, the criminal enterprise called ACORN was on the run. Both House and Senate voted to de-fund the organization, but in different ways that were, in effect, more symbolic than real. The Democrats, having laid low for a while, are now moving to restore ACORN to a more powerful position than ever.

Byron York explains last week's maneuvering in the House Financial Services Committee. Republicans led by Michele Bachmann matched wits with Maxine Waters and the Democrats. That sounds like a mismatch, but the Dems prevailed by aiming higher than the Republicans had anticipated.

What is at stake is the administration's proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The House bill creates an Oversight Board that will advise the administrator of the agency. The Oversight Board consists of high-ranking officials like the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. Only, under Waters's amendment, the Oversight Board would also include five members selected for their "expert[ise] in financial services, community development, fair lending and civil rights, and consumer financial products or services." Read, ACORN and assorted partners in crime.

Last Thursday was a confusing day at the House Financial Services Committee. The committee was preparing to vote on legislation to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency when a fight erupted over ACORN, the community organizing group that was defunded by Congress after videos surfaced showing ACORN workers involved in a variety of corrupt practices.

Although the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency -- designed to deal with issues like mortgages and credit-card fees -- has nothing to do with community organizing, Democrats offered an amendment that could allow ACORN and groups like it to participate in the new agency. Republicans offered an amendment of their own, designed to stop the Democratic one. An argument ensued. It was complicated, with lots of different proposals and a good bit of misunderstanding. But when the dust settled, Democrats had outmaneuvered Republicans, and the new bill they approved could allow organizations like ACORN to play a role in the highest levels of the new consumer protection agency.

The bill creates two boards. One, the Oversight Board, will be the key panel giving advice to the director of the new agency. The bill says the Oversight Board will have seven members and specifies who those members will be: the chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve; the head of the agency responsible for chartering and regulating national banks; the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; the chairman of the National Credit Union Administration; the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission; the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and the chairman of the liaison committee of representatives of state agencies to the Financial Institutions Examination Council.

That's the Oversight Board. The bill would also create a second board, the Advisory Board, which would offer general advice to the director of the new agency. The bill does not specify how many members the Advisory Board will have, nor who they will be. It just says they should be "experts in financial services, community development, fair lending and civil rights, and consumer financial products or services."

The Oversight Board, made up of some of the most powerful people in the U.S. government, is clearly the more powerful of the two boards. Since the makeup of the Oversight Board is specified in the bill, Republicans did not expect Democrats to try to open up that board to include openings for ACORN and similar groups. Instead, Republicans expected Democrats to offer an amendment which would make it possible for representatives from ACORN and other groups to serve on the Advisory Board. With that in mind, Republicans prepared an amendment of their own banning ACORN from the Advisory Board. (The central part of the amendment did not go after ACORN by name, but barred individuals from organizations that have been indicted for federal or state election law violations from serving on the board.)

It turns out Republicans were mistaken. On Thursday, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters introduced an amendment that would add five members, not to the Advisory Board, but to the Oversight Board, with all five chosen from among "experts in the fields of consumer protection, fair lending and civil rights, representatives of depository institutions that primarily serve underserved communities, or representatives of communities that have been significantly impacted by higher-priced mortgage loans." That description could easily fit ACORN, or any number of other pro-Democratic groups. In any event, these new members would serve alongside the top officials from the Fed, FDIC, HUD, and the rest of the Oversight Board. Waters did not waste her time with the lower-level Advisory Board; she went straight for the top, the Oversight Board.

But Republicans had prepared an amendment which covered just the Advisory Board. "We can only anticipate what she's going to offer," says Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who introduced the Republican amendment, referring to Waters. "We anticipated the Advisory Board."

If Waters surprised Bachmann, it also appears that Bachmann surprised Waters. The California Democrat appeared to expect Bachmann to attack the proposal to add community activists to the Oversight Board, and Waters seemed confused that Bachmann's amendment addressed the Advisory Board instead. Waters was prepared to fight, and then discovered the other side had missed the real target. "I do not know what we are doing here," Waters said at one point. "She [Bachmann] is amending the wrong board."

But committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank knew what was going on. Seeing that Bachmann's amendment did not cover the more important Oversight Board, Frank made sure Waters' amendment remained untouched. "We are simply trying to make sure that [Bachmann's] amendment does not inadvertently undo the amendment the gentlewoman from California previously offered," Frank said, before quickly ordering a vote on the amendments. The committee approved both Bachmann's and Waters'. The result was that the Oversight Board will be expanded with members of community organizations, including ACORN. Democrats did not seem to mind that ACORN was banned from the less-important Advisory Board.

In the end, the committee approved the bill, with amendments, by a vote of 39 to 29. And that was it for the day. But the issue is not yet settled.

Bachmann knows that Democrats managed to open up the Oversight Board to ACORN and other groups without even being forced to publicly defend the decision. Now, she hopes they will be forced to vote up or down on a proposal to bar ACORN from the Oversight Board. "What we're going to try to do is offer an amendment when the bill goes to the floor," says Bachmann. "That's the goal -- to keep people who are from ACORN from serving on the Oversight Board."

So there will be another test. Will Democrats vote to negate Waters' amendment, to keep ACORN and other organizations from playing key roles in the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency? Or will they take a stand for ACORN when it comes to the final debate on the bill? The answer could determine whether ACORN finds an important place in a large and powerful new government agency.

The Obama administration has released a preliminary list of White House visitors as part of its promise to release to the public a record of people who came to the White House as well as "when they came, how long they were here, and who they met with."

The list, which is here, includes the names "William Ayers" and "Jeremiah Wright." But the White House says they aren't the Ayers and Wright that are known to the public.

"A lot of people visit the White House, up to 100,000 each month, with many of those folks coming to tour the buildings," White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said in a statement. "Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few 'false positives' – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else."

"In September, requests were submitted for the names of some famous or controversial figures (for example Michael Jordan, William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Robert Kelly ("R. Kelly"), and Malik Shabazz)," he continued. "The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names."

Among the names on the list that appear to not be "false positives" are Bill Gates and George Clooney.

The White House told CBS News that it has social security number records that show that the Ayers who visited and the controversial William Ayers whose connections to Mr. Obama were brought up several times during the campaign last year are not one in the same.

It's unclear why the White House is including the names of people who went on White House tours with their listing of those who have come to the White House on official business. It may be news to those who have gone on the tours that a record of their visit will be released to the public.

The White House announced in September that it would release the records of visitors from the previous 90-120 days every month, "aside from a small group of appointments that cannot be disclosed because of national security imperatives or their necessarily confidential nature (such as a visit by a possible Supreme Court nominee)."

Those releases begin in December. The White House had also said it would release information about visitors prior to the beginning of the disclosure program in response to specific requests. This release is in response to such requests, 110 of which the White House says it has processed. It covers specific requests about visitors between January 20, 2009 to July 31, 2009.

WASHINGTON - For one brief, shining moment, it looked like conspiracy theorists had found the mother lode on Friday as the White House released visitor logs with such names as William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Michael Moore.

But alas, they weren't that Ayers, Wright or Moore.

The people who actually came to the White House just had the same or similar names as 1960s terrorist bomber Ayers, controversial preacher Wright and leftist filmmaker Moore, said White House Special Counsel Norm Eisen.

"The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House," Eisen said on the White House blog.

The visitor logs from Jan. 20 through July 31, released in reponse to information requests, also included people who are the real deals. They ranged from former Vice President Al Gore and liberal-cause bankroller George Soros to celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney and Denzel Washington.

I hate citing the Moonie-owned Washington Times, but it's the only news organization I seen that is following this:

EDITORIAL: Walpin-gate opens wider

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The case of Gerald Walpin, the controversially fired inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), continues to raise questions about what the Obama administration is hiding.

Two new items and one previously overlooked item are of interest in the case. First, Mr. Walpin filed a legal brief on Nov. 6 that convincingly refutes the arguments in a White House motion to dismiss the lawsuit he had filed demanding that he be reinstated to his job. Second, White House officials met on Tuesday with staff of Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, and narrowed but did not solve their differences over the Obama administration's withholding of documents related to the firing.

Though the White House has shared with the senator several hundred pages of relevant material, it continues to claim that several hundred more pages are protected by various legal "privileges." Until Mr. Grassley is satisfied with the level of White House cooperation, he probably will continue his "hold" on the nomination of CNCS Chairman Alan Solomont to be ambassador to Spain.

The previously overlooked item, meanwhile, plays a significant (but not determinative) role in Mr. Walpin's court filing against the White House's motion to dismiss. It involves one of the main arguments belatedly advanced by the White House to try to justify the firing - a firing that occurred shortly after Mr. Walpin filed two reports highly embarrassing to political allies of President Obama's. To explain Mr. Walpin's termination, the White House had tacitly endorsed a complaint filed by Acting U.S. Attorney Lawrence Brown of Sacramento concerning Mr. Walpin's behavior while compiling one of those two reports. But on Oct. 19, that complaint against Mr. Walpin had been summarily dismissed by the relevant investigator.

The Oct. 19 letter from the Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency said Mr. Walpin had "sufficiently and satisfactorily addressed the matter and that further inquiry or an investigation regarding the matter was not warranted. The [Integrity Committee] has completed its review of the matter."

In other words, Mr. Walpin had done nothing wrong. The charges against him were bogus.

The rest of Mr. Walpin's brief makes mincemeat of the White House motion to dismiss his lawsuit. Past Supreme Court decisions show that for someone to be dismissed without even the benefit of oral argument, the court must determine that the plaintiff's case has no "plausible" grounds. So let's examine the plausibility:

The crux of Mr. Walpin's case is that the White House "removed" him from his job without providing 30 days' notice and without providing Congress with reasons for the removal, both of which requirements are mandated by law. The administration's legal brief asserts that putting Mr. Walpin on paid administrative leave did not amount to "removal." That's awfully odd, considering that the entire reason Congress provided the 30-day window was so IGs could not be blocked from continuing any ongoing investigations that might embarrass an administration.

In this instance, according to Mr. Walpin's brief, before the administration notified Congress in any way about its unhappiness with Mr. Walpin, it "terminated [his] access to his [own] email account and office, and denied him access to his staff. Mr. Walpin was prevented from performing even the most rudimentary steps in order to ensure that his termination did not prevent the Office of Inspector General from performing its duties."

A letter from the White House six days after that stated clearly that "Mr. Walpin was removed." Yet now the White House plays semantics by claiming that being "removed" does not constitute "removal." This all sounds a bit too much like another Democratic president arguing over the meaning of the word "is." It is dishonest on its face.

Breitbart to AG Holder: Investigate ACORN or We’ll Release More Tapes Just Before 2010 Election

by Publius

Earlier tonight Andrew Breitbart, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles discussed the final chapter of the ACORN L.A. saga on “Hannity,” but more interestingly, Breitbart disclosed where the story goes from here. Transcript (below) starts from 3:50 into the clip:

(Go to website to view video)

Breitbart: There’s a lot of hypocrisy and the dust has settled for ACORN and at the end of the day they’ve recognized that Eric Holder, the Attorney General, has not initiated an investigation into ACORN after we now have seven tapes. There were five initially that came out, ACORN was defunded by the Senate, was defunded by the House, lost it’s link to the Census; while all that damage occurred, Congress didn’t come in to investigate them, obviously not the Attorney General’s office, and they’ve now realized let’s get back into business because they realized that the dust settled and they were not being investigated, it was Hannah, James, and me who were being investigated, that’s why we’ve been forced to offer this latest tape.

Hannity: Are you saying, Andrew, that there are more tapes?

Breitbart: Oh my goodness there are! Not only are there more tapes, it’s not just ACORN. And this message is to Attorney General Holder: I want you to know that we have more tapes, it’s not just ACORN, and we’re going to hold out until the next election cycle, or else if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have, we will comply with you, we will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution that they fear that this is a dangerous organization. So if you get into an investigation, we will give you the tapes; if you don’t give us the tapes, we will revisit these tapes come election time.

Hannity: This is a blockbuster, what you’re saying here. You guys have more tapes, you’ll release them before the election, that could have a big impact on the election, obviously…

10. If you are an ACORN employee who tried to organize other ACORN employees into a union but were stopped by ACORN's illegal union busting activities while ACORN fights to unionize OTHER companies... you might be a progressive.

9. If in the year 2009, you belong to a congressional caucus that uses skin color as it's only membership criteria... you might be a progressive.

8. If you are a congress person who belongs to a congressional caucus started by a self described socialist, and you think it is OK... you might be a progressive.

7. If you are a congress person in a "free country" who has a Freudian Slip and tells someone you want to nationalize their whole industry while at the same time you are directing tax payer dollars to save a company you are part owner of... you might be a progressive.

6. If you are the Ohio spokesperson for a Presidential campaign and you vote in that swing state instead of your home state as the law requires... you might be a progressive.

5. If you get an appointment in the Department of Transportation within that winning administration despite your illegal voter fraud activities... you might be a progressive.

4. If an organization you work for is paid almost a million dollars by a Presidential campaign to register voters, the organization endorses that campaign's candidate and only turns in registrations for that candidate's party and that organization is tax exempt... you might be a progressive.

3. If you call people who drive cross-country with hand made signs because they heard there was going to be a protest against big government "astro-turf" but you call the people paid below minimum wage waving professionally printed signs that were handed out to them as they get off a bus paid for by a PAC "grass roots"... you might be a progressive.

2. If you find yourself at a rally chanting that health care is a human right while forgetting that doctors are not slaves and you actually don't have a right to lay claim to their skills and abilities for free... you just might be a progressive.

1. If you think Carbon Dioxide, the gas required by plants to convert solar energy into usable chemical energy in the photosynthetic process, the very source of all food on the planet, is a pollutant... you might be a progressive.

Chris Duco served 8 years in the US Navy, 6 as a nuclear trained Machinist Mate aboard the most highly decorated ship in US history.

A top House Republican today blasted a ruling by the Justice Department that allows the Obama administration to pay ACORN for services provided under contracts signed before Congress passed a law banning the community advocacy group from receiving taxpayers money.

Republicans have been on the warpath against ACORN since its voter registration efforts came under scrutiny during the 2008 presidential campaign. After conservative activists, who posed as a prostitute and pimp, released videos appearing to show ACORN staffers advising them how to skirt the law, Democrats joined in the outrage, leading to the congressional funding ban that Obama signed on Oct. 1.

Since 1994, ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it in grants to help poor people obtain affordable housing. The Justice Department asked whether the funding ban applied to prior contracts. In a ruling first reported by the New York Times, a department lawyer said the payments under prior contracts should continue because the language of the law did not expressly wipe them out.

But Representative Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said "the bipartisan intent of Congress was clear -- no more federal dollars should flow to ACORN."

"It is telling that this administration continues to look for every excuse possible to circumvent the intent of Congress," Issa said in a statement. "Taxpayers should not have to continue subsidizing a criminal enterprise that helped Barack Obama get elected president. The politicization of the Justice Department to payback one of the president’s political allies is shameful and amounts to nothing more than old-fashioned cronyism."

Al Franken couldn't hold a 14 point Obama margin against popular centrist Republican incumbent Norm Coleman, but he did hold his election to a zero point margin, and that was enough because of the victory guarantee program his party had put in place ahead the election.

The near sweep of 2006 included replacing a competent (R) Secretary of State with one that was hand-picked by and heavily supported by the left-wing activist group moveon.org. At the tiime no one outside of the Bush-Gore inner fight understood the significance. Simultaneous to state change and even preceding it was the takeover of the inner city election process by ACORN.

Twin Cities ABC affiliate KSTP-5 just ran an extensive investigative report concluding that whether or not your questionable or clearly defective ballot was accepted or rejected depended wholly on what jurisdiction you lived in. In the outlying areas, state law was followed. In the liberal inner cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, ballots without signatures, witnesses or addresses were commonly accepted.

They interviewed the MN Sec. of State for 90 minutes and he refused to break out his reading glasses to look at any of the material they presented, sticking to generalities that prevailed in the court challenge to the end result.

"Doug, not that it matters at this point but do you think Coleman was robbed of the election?The msm of course is dead silent on this issue."

Please watch the video at the link: http://kstp.com/article/stories/S1222327.shtml?cat=5 This is the definitive piece on the recount IMO. 8 minutes of investigation reporting by the local ABC affiliate, no follow up, and like CCP said, the national media didn't pick up on it at all. They got what they wanted. The report closes by saying we haven't heard the end of this. That was a month ago. I guess we did. They even let the link fall off their website already.

Basically the election was a tie. Coleman won with the original data. Franken won with the 'adusted' data.

Ballots were counted in liberal strongholds that wouldn't have been counted elsewhere in the state - enough to win. ACORN and George Soros picked Sec of State says he didn't bring his reading glasses to the interview - didn't know he was going to have this sprung on him.

Clarice FeldmanMain Justice.com reports there's been an unceremonial removal from office of the Civil Rights Division's Voting Rights Section chief, Christopher Coates. He signed off on the complaint against the Black Panthers and is presently under subpoena by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission which is investigating Attorny General Holder's decision to drop the case after it was won.

Veteran Civil Rights Division attorney Christopher Coates is no longer chief of the Voting Section, according to the division's Web site.

There was no official announcement of the personnel change in the long-troubled section, which most recently has been embroiled in the controversy over the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. Main Justice noticed the change on the Voting Section Web site.

Taking over for Coates in an acting role is Chris Herren, a deputy chief of the section, according to the Web site.

Alejandro Miyar, a spokesman for the Civil Rights Division, wasn't available for comment Sunday. Coates did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. It could not be learned whether Coates left the department entirely or transferred to another post.

Coates signed off on the controversial voter intimidation complaint against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members, filed in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration. The Obama DOJ's decision to dismiss most of the charges in May has become a political controversy for the administration.

Coates also supervised J. Christian Adams, the career Voting Section attorney who compiled the Black Panther case. Adams, who has a history of conservative advocacy, was hired in 2005 by then-Civil Rights Division official Bradley Scholzman, a Bush political appointee who improperly politicized the hiring process in the division, the department's Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility found in a joint investigation.

Coates had been listed on the Web site as chief of the Voting Section as late as Dec. 20.

Ed LaskyThe House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is investigating the Office of Management and Budget for threatening an inspector genera l that if he did not keep quiet regarding slashes in his department's budget "they'd make life miserable for him."

The inspector generals are federal watchdog officials who are supposed to ensure the honesty and integrity of other federal officials. In this case, Patrick McFarland , inspector general of the Office of Personnel Management, received a "not so veiled threat from the OMB" about telling Congress of concerns over its budget.

A 2008 federal law allows inspectors general to inform Congress if they believe their proposed budgets would inhibit oversight duties. The law was designed to protect watchdogs from top agency officials that might cut watchdog budgets in retaliation for hard-hitting investigations.

The inspector generals watch to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and honestly, that rules are followed, that government power is not used for improper ends (such as partisan politics). The fact that the Obama administration, addicted to vast deficit spending, has chosen to slash spending for internal watchdogs is very revealing. The most honest and open administration in the history of the world wants to eviscerate the one department charged with ensuring the integrity and honesty of the federal government.

There is a greater rationale to increase funding for our nation's inspector generals given the orgy of spending that the Obama administration is undertaking to make sure rules are followed and money is tracked.

Instead, the inspector generals are now seemingly being treated as enemies of the Obama team - joining an ever-expanding list. We have seen hits before by the Obama team-against Inspector General Walpin, who was investigating improper activities by Sacramento's mayor (a Democratic and political ally of Barack Obama's) and who was fired and subject to rounds of public abuse and criticism. The Walpin affair came amid other allegations of political interference at other agencies and even the Library of Congress.

The Chicago Boys play rough. They do not want the media keeping an eye on them (see Fox News) and they do not want federal officials monitoring them, either. So they manipulate the budget to cut one area where an oversight is desperately needed as trillions of tax-payer dollars are spent.

They also could care less about pledges of honesty and openness that were made in 2008, 2009, 2010. Words Matter, according to Obama. But those were just words after all.

Judiciary Committee Turns Down Black Panther ResolutionBy Michael P. Tremoglie, For The BulletinPUBLISHED:SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 2010The House Judiciary Committee voted against a measure on Jan. 13, that was previously introduced by Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., that would have required the Department of Justice (DOJ) to explain to Congress why it dismissed a voter intimidation case involving members of the New Black Panther Party at a polling place in Philadelphia in November 2008.

Mr. Wolf, the top Republican on the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds DOJ, introduced a “resolution of inquiry” in December. The measure, H. Res. 994, was defeated 15-14 on a party-line vote.

“I am deeply disappointed that Judiciary Committee defeated my resolution of inquiry on a party-line vote. There has been no oversight, no accountability and certainly no transparency with regard to this attorney general and this Department of Justice,” Mr. Wolf said in a written statement.

Mr. Wolf noted that the Obama administration promised "unprecedented transparency" and has provided the exact opposite. The American people deserve better he said.

Attorney General Holder has ignored seven letters over seven months from Mr. Wolf. He has also failed to comply with subpoenas issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

The attorney general continues to thwart all efforts to compel an explanation for the dismissal of U.S. v. New Black Panther Party. DOJ is claiming broad privileges — which many legal scholars question — in order to avoid disclosing any new information regarding this case.

“The Justice Department has gone as far as to claim ‘privilege’ and redact seven pages of a letter that I sent to the attorney general and released publicly on July 31, 2009,” Mr. Wolf said. “It failed to provide the commission with many of my other letters that it said it was prepared to share. I sincerely question the judgment of the Civil Rights Division leadership — both in its dismissal of this case and its stonewalling of this Congress and the Commission on Civil Rights.”

Pretend for a moment that this was a Republican effort and then imagine the ensuing din.

The New Black Panthers and the White HouseWhat did the White House know and when did it know it?

By Hans A. von Spakovsky

The more the Obama administration fights the subpoenas from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and denies congressmen’s requests for answers concerning the inexplicable dismissal of the voter-intimidation case in Philadelphia against the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), the more reasonable people wonder what the administration has to hide. And so it is appropriate now to ask: What did the White House know and when did it know it?

Perhaps the single most important question that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the White House are refusing to answer in the growing scandal (for the stonewalling and subpoena violations make it a scandal) is which political appointees were involved in the obviously wrongful decision to dismiss the lawsuit — a civil suit filed under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Newly released White House visitor records present strong circumstantial evidence of White House involvement in what should have been an independent and impartial law-enforcement decision.

The facts of the voter-intimidation case have been widely reported. There is even a video of NBPP members outside a polling place; they are dressed in paramilitary uniforms, and one of them is waving a nightstick. Poll watchers also reported that they were hurling racial epithets at elderly voters, some of whom were quite afraid. When the DOJ filed suit last January, the NBPP did not deny the charges, and the veteran trial lawyers were preparing a default judgment and broad injunction. So it is completely inexplicable from a legal point of view why the career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division were suddenly ordered in May to dismiss the lawsuit against the NBPP and all but one defendant. The injunction against the remaining defendant is a joke, for it does not prohibit him from wielding his weapon in polling places outside Philadelphia or from yelling racial epithets and blocking entrances to polling places anywhere. There is also nothing to stop the NBPP from organizing the same type of harassment in future elections.

On December 30 — a time of year when most people’s attention is not on the news — the administration released the latest list of White House visitors. Going through the list takes quite a while, but doing so reveals some rather startling “coincidences” — meetings between Justice Department political appointees known to be involved in the dismissal and a White House deputy counsel that coincide with key dates in the New Black Panther saga. Some of the meetings appear to have followed a regular schedule. Others were set up on short notice and break from the pattern in unusual ways, particularly as they are matched up against some known or reported facts in the NBPP litigation.

In reviewing the data, keep in mind that internal DOJ memos and news reports establish that the career lawyers in the Voting Section working on the case were overruled by Obama political appointees. But who exactly was involved? The Washington Times reported that Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, the No. 3 official at Justice, “was consulted and ultimately approved a decision in May to reverse course and drop a civil complaint.” The DOJ has not denied this, but it also won’t say if Perrelli was the highest official involved.

Loretta King, the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights, was also involved in ordering the career Voting Section lawyers to dismiss the suit and was in communication with Perrelli. So what else can we piece together?

The newly released White House records show a series of meetings between Perrelli and the then White House deputy counsel, Cassandra Butts, some also involving Spencer Overton, the deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department. All of these Obama political appointees were actively involved with voting issues in their previous jobs.

Perrelli was extensively involved in some of the Democratic Party’s biggest redistricting fights as a private attorney. Butts used to work at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and has described herself as being “as close to Barack as anyone in law school.” When Butts was at the Center for American Progress, she complained on CAP’s blog about John Ashcroft allowing conservative views to influence decisions in the Civil Rights Division and specifically the Voting Section.

Spencer Overton is a George Washington University Law School professor who considers himself an “expert” on the Voting Rights Act and is one of the most partisan individuals in the so-called “vote reform” community. He has relentlessly attacked Republicans as “vote suppressors” and “intimidators” in demagogic publications like Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression.

The NBPP voter-intimidation lawsuit was filed in January 2009, just before the Bush administration left office. Court records show that Justice lawyers notified the court on April 1 that the defendants had not answered the lawsuit, which is the preliminary step necessary to obtain a default judgment. On April 2, the clerk in the federal court in Philadelphia entered notice in the record that the defendants were in default.

That was about the same period of time when Kristen Clarke, on behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, was circulating copies of the complaint and reportedly demanding that the Obama administration dismiss the lawsuit. Did she call her former NAACP colleague in the White House counsel’s office? Did she try to have other politically powerful people make calls to get the suit dismissed? We don’t yet know for sure, but just a week later, on April 8, Thomas Perrelli was meeting with Cassandra Butts and Spencer Overton at the White House.

On April 17, the judge in Philadelphia took notice of the failure of the NBPP defendants to answer the lawsuit by issuing an order giving Justice until May 1 to file its request for a default judgment. On May 1, however, Perrelli met in the West Wing with Butts and Overton at 2 p.m.; later that same day, the trial team on the NBPP case suddenly filed a request for an extension of time — instead of a motion for default — telling the court that it needed additional time to draft an “appropriate” default judgment order.

This was a bizarre request and bizarre timing. Justice had had a full month to draft a proposed order, something that the experienced lawyers on the case could have done in a few hours. It appears they were ordered at the last minute to ask for an extension, instead of completing what they had set in motion on April 1 when they first told the court that the defendants were in default. The judge gave Justice an extension until May 15 to file its motion for default judgment.

Right after May 1, there was a request from higher-ups for a second, very extensive case memorandum, which was given to Loretta King on May 6 by the trial team. Later that day, at 4:30 p.m., Perrelli met with Butts and another, unnamed White House official.

On May 13, two days before the court’s deadline, King received a third important memorandum on the case. Apparently, she had asked the Civil Rights Appellate Section for another review, a very unusual procedure, no doubt hoping the liberals in that section would find that there was no merit to the case. However, the chief of the Appellate Section, Diana Flynn, concluded on May 13 that the suit was meritorious and that there was no reason to dismiss the suit. Yet that same day, at 2 p.m., Perrelli again met with Butts and another White House official. We know what resulted from that meeting — an order to dismiss the case. The trial lawyers who had to prepare the dismissal motions probably have a record of when they were ordered to do so. Was it late on May 13?

Despite all the evidence of intimidation and the unanimous conclusions of the career lawyers who actually worked on the case, the Appellate Section lawyers who carefully scrutinized the relevant facts and law, and each of their respective supervisors that Justice had a solid case, the DOJ dismissed the lawsuit against all but one defendant late on May 15 and sought only an extremely limited remedy against the remaining defendant.

There is certainly other evidence known to the career trial lawyers at the DOJ that could make the circumstantial links with the White House much stronger. The DOJ has reportedly ordered several of the trial lawyers to disobey subpoenas issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, but the subpoena fight is ongoing. Because the DOJ by statute is supposed to enforce the commission’s subpoenas, and instead is actively thwarting them, the DOJ is caught in an outrageous conflict of interest that cries out for condemnation.

The NBPP story broke on the front page of the Washington Times on May 29. The reporters had earlier called DOJ officials to get the department’s position, and no doubt the reporters have a record of when they called for comment. Two days before the story broke, when Justice likely knew it was coming, Perrelli was once again at the White House — but this time he was meeting with Gregory Craig, who was then President Obama’s White House counsel, and another unnamed White House official.

Finally, on July 30, although the Justice Department had all along been asserting that career lawyers had made all the decisions in this case, the Washington Times ran a story revealing that Perrelli was “ultimately consulted and approved” the decision to reverse course and drop the lawsuit. The White House records show that an appointment was made that very day for a meeting between Perrelli and Cassandra Butts; the meeting took place the next afternoon. The records also show Perrelli meeting with Catherine Whitney, executive assistant to Gregory Craig, on July 24 and 27, at the same time, almost certainly, that Washington Times reporters were calling the DOJ as they were preparing the July 30 story.

During the summer and into the fall, this case received more and more attention. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights opened an investigation and sent a series of letters to the Justice Department starting in June requesting information and documents on the dismissal. Reps. Lamar Smith (R., Tex.) and Frank Wolf (R., Va.) also sent a series of increasingly angry letters to Justice asking for information and complaining about the department’s stonewalling. Perrelli met with Butts and Associate White House Counsel Danielle Gray on various other dates that may prove relevant to the NBPP cover-up. Those dates are not yet tied to events in the NBPP saga that are currently public, but additional information may come to light in the near future.

Butts resigned as a deputy counsel in November to be a “senior adviser” to the CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, in what appears to be a demotion to a minor government post. What remains unanswered is how much involvement the White House had in the decision to dismiss the NBPP case and what Perrelli, Butts, Overton, and the others were discussing in their meetings that coincided with key events in the NBPP case.

All of this is circumstantial evidence, of course. But as any good Justice Department prosecutor can tell you, there are many people in prison whose guilt was proved beyond a reasonable doubt on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone. As Thoreau said, “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.” We can safely assume the trout did not jump into the milk, and we can reasonably assume that the White House would deny involvement in the NBPP scandal if it in fact was not involved. Perhaps all of Perrelli’s meetings had nothing to do with the NBPP case; perhaps Perrelli and the White House officials were discussing the latest Washington Redskins loss. Or perhaps not.

It’s also important to understand that the radical civil-rights establishment, to which Perrelli, Butts, Overton, and Clarke belong, don’t believe in color-blind enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Nor do they believe that all voters should be protected from discrimination. They were apoplectic when the Bush administration filed, and won, a voting-rights case against black officials in Noxubee County, Miss. They made it very clear that the Voting Rights Act should be used only to go after white officials, and that it was blasphemy to use it to protect white voters — no matter what the circumstances. The NBPP case in Philadelphia infuriated them just as the Noxubee case did.

Did White House officials order Perrelli to dismiss this case? If so, which officials? These questions may help explain why the Justice Department has refused to provide almost any information about this case, despite clear law that it must “cooperate fully” with the Commission on Civil Rights. The department is even asserting privileges that do not exist in response to the commission’s subpoenas, such as the need to protect against disclosures that would “undermine its ability to carry out its mission.”

Last week, the Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee voted not to support their fellow congressmen who want answers. What hypocrisy! Remember the dozens of hearings and subpoenas by congressional Democrats over the firing of the U.S. attorneys during the Bush administration, and their demands for answers from the White House? During the Obama administration, Democratic members of Congress want to hear no evil and see no evil about politicizing law-enforcement decisions in the Justice Department.

That said, it should be noted that almost no Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee actually spoke against investigating the NBPP dismissal — which must have made the administration nervous. The Democrats offered one last almost silent vote for the cover-up, but they know the other shoe might drop soon. Chairman John Conyers suggested to the committee’s Republican members that he might support hearings if the DOJ did not provide answers. Even if the White House visitor records are not the other shoe themselves, it may not take much more digging to make the picture complete. Then what will the White House say? That the system (to politicize law enforcement) worked?

— Hans A. von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org) and a former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department.

The LA Times reports today that Kaiser Permanente health care workers have voted themselves out of SEIU by a 6 to 1 margin. They are aligning with a break-away faction National Union of Health Care Workers.

Issues with Electronic Votes, Shads, and ACORNs. I sometimes wonder why we do not already have people marching........... I sometimes wonder if it is an intentional action to get citizens to lose confidence in the vote to destabilize the country? Do any of these functionaries realize how IMPORTANT that is? A certain amount of confidence is required or we evenyually will go the way of some of the denocratic banana republics- constant civil war over the outcome of the vote..........

Judicial Watch can come off as cranks, but they do find some interesting stuff like this:

Judicial Watch Uncovers New Documents Detailing Pelosi's Use of Air Force Aircraft

View DiscussionHouse Speaker’s Military Travel Cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a Two-Year Period, Including $101,429 for In-Flight Expenses

Contact Information:Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305

Washington, DC -- January 28, 2010Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Air Force detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s use of United States Air Force aircraft for Congressional Delegations (CODELs). According to the documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. The following are highlights from the recent release of about 2,000 documents:

Speaker Pelosi used Air Force aircraft to travel back to her district at an average cost of $28,210.51 per flight. The average cost of an international CODEL is $228,563.33. Of the 103 Pelosi-led congressional delegations (CODEL), 31 trips included members of the House Speaker’s family.One CODEL traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008, “to discuss matters of mutual concern with government leaders” included members of Congress and their spouses and cost $17,931 per hour in aircraft alone. Purchases for the CODEL included: Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewars scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.According to a “Memo for Record” from a March 29—April 7, 2007, CODEL that involved a stop in Israel, “CODEL could only bring Kosher items into the Hotel. Kosher alcohol for mixing beverages in the Delegation room was purchased on the local economy i.e. Bourbon, Whiskey, Scotch, Vodka, Gin, Triple Sec, Tequila, etc.”The Department of Defense advanced a CODEL of 56 members of Congress and staff $60,000 to travel to Louisiana and Mississippi July 19-22, 2008, to “view flood relief advances from Hurricane Katrina.” The three-day trip cost the U.S. Air Force $65,505.46, exceeding authorized funding by $5,505.46.“Speaker Pelosi has a history of wasting taxpayer funds with her boorish demands for military travel. And these documents suggest the Speaker’s congressional delegations are more about partying than anything else,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch previously obtained internal DOD email correspondence detailing attempts by DOD staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s last minute cancellations and changes.

Politics: Didn't Acorn, the corrupt community organizer, get its federal funding yanked after its last scandal? Actually, no. Through municipal middlemen, it's poised to rake in another $4 billion. Where is the outrage?

You'd think a group implicated in dozens of electoral fraud cases, theft of funds and, most recently, helping criminals interested in bringing child prostitutes to the U.S. would have been ruled ineligible for federal aid long ago.

But think again, because these aid rats are experts at survival.

FrontPage magazine reports that federal Judge Nina Gershon ruled that Acorn is eligible for the Obama administration's proposed $4 billion in Housing and Urban Development grants within the $3.83 trillion federal budget proposal for 2011.

That cancels the ban Congress placed on Acorn funding late last year after at least five of the group's offices willingly aided undercover reporters posing as a pimp and prostitute to get federal funding for a brothel and cheat on their taxes.

Acorn's antics were revealed after a series of reports last September on the BigGovernment Web site. Faced with a firestorm of complaints, Congress had no choice but to pull funds for the group.

Many were surprised that Congressional Democrats backed Acorn's defunding. Usually, Acorn and the Democratic Party work hand in hand. Acorn supplies votes and election assistance to Democratic candidates, and the Democrats supply them with funding.

Turns out, the fund-pulling was really just for show.

Acorn is being allowed to make an end-run around the federal funding ban through the use of a middleman, the Washington Times reports.

The way it's done is through HUD Community Development Block Grants, which are given to cities and states to help boost development efforts. Instead of applying directly to the federal government for aid, a violation of Congress' ban, Gershon, a Clinton appointee, effectively ruled that Acorn can instead apply directly to cities and states.

In short, this gaping loophole means the ban is off.

No organization that has broken the law so many times has any right to even indirect federal funding. The fact the feds never prosecuted them as they should have is what has created the opening for Acorn to put its snout in the public trough once again.

It's time for Congress and HUD to get tough with these miscreants before they do any more damage to our system.